Please help to ignite the Great Re-Awakening in Europe

[Inhocsigno]

Just wanted to report the happy news from our summer sojourning with the mission teams in Greece, we're having a great and rapid expansion of the large and small ministries both. In our home-base in Epirus alone, and just over the summer and with connections within our mission movement, we've had more than 3 dozen American families move and start planting down roots! With many Canadian, Brit, Argentine, South African and Australian and New Zealand families joining too, now with active collaborations.

It's one of the biggest mission growth spurts we've ever seen in NW Greece, and already we've been able to bring in dozens of new recruits in our missions to Albania and Kosovo (bordering the region in Greece), achieving over 100 conversions just in our teams over the summer! A new church was built in a span of just 2 months over in SW Albania, lead by a Kosovo Albanian pastor who converted and joined the church last year. This is in addition to many Turkish and Syrian converts in Greece itself, given the history between Greece and Turkey, seeing this kind of friendship and fellow worship in Christ between the peoples is amazing!

Greetings Joey,
This is all great news! We have also been getting good news trickling in from our ministry teams in the Balkans and SE Europe and Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and increasing even portions of NW Turkey have been sites of great progress. Keep up your great work!

 

[JoeySoley]

Glad to spread the good news and good cheer! Our teams there are super motivated and well organized so expecting many many other good news updates too before the Advent season kicks in.

 

[Ceciledemarseilles]

We have also been seeing record conversion rates in our missions lately so delighted to see it happening in Greece and elsewhere around the continent! In France it's of course been very high among the Algerian and Tunisian populations, but we're also seeing high levels of conversion for the Albanian, Turkish, Arab and Iranian populations here. The highest we've seen. The breakthrough with the North African populations is of big importance because like it appears a lot of you have you been saying, they became our best evangelists back home. If it hasn't been mentioned already, many of the mountainous and Berber regions across Algeria and Tunisia have already been witnessing an incredible blossoming of new churches, for first time in centuries. Then now with the new group of converts coming in from France and nearby, they're able to connect and access resources they lacked before, leading to an even larger blossoming of churches across the region. I would say it's a miracle, but of course it's the fruit of a lot of hard work and dedication among our missions here. Our core of course is mostly Americans who've made their way into France but we now benefit from the contributions of mission members coming from all over the Americas and Oceania too. And miracles in their own way are happening becuase of it.

 

[Inhocsigno]

Greetings Cecile,
Miracles indeed! Thank you for using that word as it helps to capture one of the things that makes the mission experience special. It was something a few of our earlly mission teachers taught us years ago, that among the occupations we can engage in, missionary and evangelical work are truly unique in the way we can touch the hearts and waken the spirit in the people we reach. We make a critical difference in the converted and the evangelized, and for their children and children's children. There are few other things we engage in where we can genuinely make such a difference and a little miracle it does feel like when we reach our flock.

 

[JoeySoley]

Yes Epirus and NW Greece in general is one of the great frontiers missionary work, not just in Europe but globally. It's also great basic training for doing missions in a multi-ethnic region, with mix of secular and religious communities.

 

[JoeySoley]

And thanks for keeping us posted on the success with the missions in France and Germany! While we havent been directly involved, a few of our brother and sister churches from back in the US have been sending a lot of missionaries there, some involved like it sounds you are heavily with both rebuilding or building new parish churches, and with conversions of the Algerian, Tunisia and Moroccan and Egyptian populations, along with the Turkish and Syrian conversions that have been long in going. We've also been hearing great success lately, in fact I do recall one mentioning that many of the Algerian converts are connected to their Berber heritage, and become quite energetic missionaries back in Algeria and the whole region. Apparently dozens of new churches around the Atlas mountains in just the past 5 years springing up there!

 

[Inhocsigno]

Greetings Joey,
Thanks for keeping us updated and for all you're doing. The efforts among the Berbers (the Amazigh) have indeed been a highlight of recent missionary work, particular standing out because of their unique nature--reached largely indirectly through the efforts of converts among their compatriots doing temporary stays in Europe. This has been one of our most significant success stories and a major reason we have shifted our ministry focus generally to the European missions, as this has become a once in a millennium opportunity to make an historic difference. Glad to hear of success with parallel efforts there in the Balkans and in the 10/40 Window more generally. These efforts have been long in coming!

 

[Inhocsigno]

I would also add as mentioned in another thread, in addition to Berber areas these efforts have also been enjoying great success particularly in Syria and Turkey. Even though the civil war has finally been subsiding and many areas of Syria are becoming safe and rebuilding again, there is still a deep spiritual hunger and deficit in much of the country as Syrians from Europe and other countries return home. Many of the Syrians who left as refugees, whether going into Europe or in countries like Lebanon, have embraced the Gospels in the interim years, and are now incorporating new missions, charities and church building as part of their rebuilding efforts upon returning home, even including in many cases their kids born abroad who are now able to grow up as Christians in a new and reviving Syria re-connecting with its own roots in the church and ministries.

 

[rachelrising]

Pastors etc are looking for new people to become Christians and draw closer to God and to attend their services.
I cannot believe what happened today. Me and my mum will be attending a service for healing and wholeness before she travels in another church this Sunday. Some pastors certainly have been praying to draw people to the church and wondering why. The Wholeness was so good as well.

I went to the website looking for the times of the service. Everything but the times of the service was on the website. There was no mention of it. I couldn't believe it. There was mentions of social days everything but the central point of the website. People have probably gone looking to attend and not seen it an given up. I don't even attend that church and I noticed it. I had to text the pastor and them alert that on their website there is no of church services and times the central of the website. Please tell me when it is on for this Sunday I asked in the text. It was almost like these were the times of Paul early Christian when they were in secret.

The pastor texted me and said it was his shame that it wasn't there and he will address it urgently.

Please remember to draw people to God and if you have a website please remember to keep the times of the services as the most important thing and easy to locate.

I have tried to be a part of this change as well. I need to focus now on my health a bit more now as well. I will never stop giving my cards out as well.

Good luck with being a part of this change.

 

[Deeply Inspired Sally]

Hi there rachelrising, just wanted to reassure you you're not alone in such experiences, my mother, father, kids and extended family have often attended church services in varied locations and have had more than just one occasion of missing a service (or arriving an hour or two early) due to confusion about when the service was being held.

We're preparing now to head overseas for mission work and I can guarantee we've learned well the lesson you speak of here, particularly since different cultures, regions and cities often have widely divergent traditions for church services. The good news now is I believe many churches are using more of a common template for making announcements about schedules and services on their websites, blogs, flyers and other forms of communication, so it is a bit easier to get this information.

Though when all else fails, most pastors are quite the open and friendly people, and can be a good thing to reach out to them directly.

 

[rachelrising]

Thank goodness on this what I posted above about the website yesterday being absent of the church services. I got an update today. The vicar couldn't find it either yesterday on their website. They did contact the webmaster though who said it was on there. Under the home tab you had to click a box to view the services. It is good it was there thank goodness. However, it could be given more promenence a tab of its own. Also, the issue is if in this day and age you use a simple ad block and you use a drop down box on your website and don't put your church services on the main page some people will not be able to view it without turning it off.

 

[Deeply Inspired Sally]

That's great to hear! We're doing a little church tour of the Nordic countries coming up and have been looking through several websites too about the church information.

The auto-translate feature for websites and documents is amazing for these days, it really makes it easy to see the calendars and activities for the churches in any language in any country without their having to worry about translating for us, and they're usually well done put together. We're leaving for a major tour soon so looking like we'll basically be off-line for awhile, made sense then to just print and run off copies of the worship and service schedules for the churches we're visiting to take with us.

Of course since that's going to be where our mission focus is we're busy learning ourselves, Swedish, Norwegian and the other languages of the region, seems like they're close enough together it's not hard to learn the others if you pick up one. But never hurts to have some pre-printed schedules first, know what to expect.

We're still not sure exactly which of the countries we'll land in, but from what I know if you get settled in one of the Nordic countries you can go to the others to help out with missions there too. I just wish we had a bit more Swedish or Norwegian in the family background, not so sure how well our Irish, Italian, German, French or Polish will get us a passport for Sweden but we're working on it!

But it is nice for now at least, you can go visa free in Europe for around 3 months when just doing tours and getting a feel for the churches and where they need help with missions and church constructing, while preparing to make the permanent move there. It's one of the really nice things about Europe for Americans, there's so much history in even just small towns in Scandinavia you can spend weeks in one place learning something, especially if you make connections with the churches and pastors there.

 

[Inhocsigno]

Greetings Rachel,
I can thoroughly attest that I and our mission teams in Europe have also encountered precisely what you speak of, more than once! A silver lining, it's helped our own ministries to prepare a bit more effectively for the new churches we're buildling or refurbished, and of course in our own conversion efforts there. Scheduling and communicating church calendars has been a challenge since St. Peter's days and often not a trivial one. New technology has made it easier in some ways but also caused more challenges in its own wake. Now in addition to Websites we are having to learn to use apps to get the message out, including short messages on TikTok or other video sites that people in practice are using. Great opportunities to learn and part of what makes mission work forever new and interesting.

 

[rachelrising]

When you are doing all you can to try and draw some people to consider the Christian faith and going to church it can feel like it is being made more difficult when things happen like they have done in the UK just recently with the Anglican church. It doesn't make things easier. Being a non demontional myself all this disturbances going on now and previous church's I have decided for neurtality for my effort to God to no longer give a church where I worshipped in fear of going into disrupte and this is disappointing. I had no idea about the issues that had been going on in the Anglican church until yesterday for example. I attend my local Anglican church and have had a good experience. I though had to remove this from my own story and write I just I attend church. I know if i shared that as it with friends some may think something I wouldn't want. Some on my Facebook won't attend church because of previous scandals.

When you are trying to reach vulnerable groups as well, it really doesn't help. You might need to back a bit for the scandal to settle. These types of church's can be more ideal for some vulnerable groups as they can be shorter and without music. I need to take this to God how to handle this.

 

[Venables]

This is speaking our language too. I'm part of another one of those small inter-church groups across several states in the US, in our case with a focus on France missions and a couple surrounding countries when we ourselves make the transplant to live in Europe over the next 2-3 years. Even though we come from specific denominations in our US churches (mostly Lutheran, Baptist, and Methodist but some Charismatic and Episcopalian too) we find that the religious landscape in France and Europe is a bit more fluid at the moment. So when we're moving families and small communities in Europe, the denominations of our new churches may be a bit of a shift than what we're used to. It's an interesting way that mission work, especially when making a permanent move to our new homes, changes the very kind of lens we use to look at and understand our faith communities.

 

[Inhocsigno]

Greetings Rachel,
Fellow voice of agreement and support for you here. Denominational affiliations are often a complicated, detailed and deeply personal matter and you have plenty of company. Our own mission groups in Europe are very multi denominational and we've made it a point to support all of our ministers there, regardless of specific denomination. Many began with a particular denomination in the US, then chose another when they went to minister and work on new churches in Europe, and raise their families in it. The mysteries of God's grace and the mysteries of the human mind and experience entwine here, and it's hard for any of us to predict the migrations and choices we'll later make with our faith. For mission groups in particular, we work to stay open and accepting of those choices and new embraces.

 

[Inhocsigno]

Greetings Sally,
Sorry I missed the question you'd inserted there about ways to get settled in your Scandinavian mission, but this has come up a lot with our own mission teams coming into Europe from the US (or from Canada, Australia or other sources). And the simple answer, you can indeed use any part of your family background that qualifies to get effectively a EU passport, that will get you where you want to go. This thanks to the EU policies on moving in between countries. (Norway is in the Schengen broader area so it works the same way)

So as example, if you have an Irish, Italian, German or other ancestor in your genealogy tree that's qualifying to get citizenship in that country, you can get that country's passport, and then you have a passport to get to Sweden, Norway, Finland or wherever it is you are wanting to go, even without a bit of ancestry in that specific country. The particular policies vary a bit from country to country and I'm by no means an expert, but for our missions as example which are centered mainly in France (or Germany), most of the American families who've settled in to help with the French parish churches and mission efforts, don't have any French ancestry.

But most have still been able to use some kind of ancestor connection to get the passports and visas that make the ministries so much easier. Turns out they do have something like what you're describing, ancestry in one of the other EU countries that then allows the move to France. Fully worth using that option if available.

 

[Ceciledemarseilles]

A Happy Thanksgiving to all brave and bold missionaries out there! Just wanted to share some joyful news from our own mission session meeting leading into the holiday, we got word that we have a confirmed pledge of over 300 new families across our band of collaborating churches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and across the Ohio Valley into Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana and the Upper Midwest, set to make the permanent move to settle across the Atlantic and begin mission work in the European missions efforts for 2025! This of course is the bounty and reward of years preparation and like a lot of you we're also heavily France, Germany and Nordics centered but we're also spreading our wings a bit more into the Mediterranean, Netherlands and Belgium and especially into Ireland and eastern Europe.

As before many of using our ancestor ties to make the moves and visas easier but a big congrats and thank you to our Missions Planning committee for figuring out new and creative ways to help our missionaries and families make the expat move easier. Including a newer class of visas, and creative takes on teh digital nomad opportunity to link our visas and passports in the EU directly with our mission work! To our very pleasant surprise in considering the bureaucracy we've run into before, the functionaries across Europe are more open than ever to approving long term visas and citizenship to Americans looking to move specifically to help with church construction and repairs, conversion, Bible study, church renovation and faith community support, there are now even Blue Card and skilled worker options tied into it so it's one of the best times in years to start mission planning.

 

[Inhocsigno]

Greetings Cecile,
Much thanks for sharing such wonderful news! Our church mission network has also been growing rapidly, while we can't put a specific figure on the number of families in our own group making the pledge for ministry in France and Europe for 2025, we know it's a major increase so far over an already bumper crop year in 2024. Let's keep it coming!

 

[Inhocsigno]

Greetings Venables,
Thank you for mentioning this relevant point as it's something our group has seen a good deal of two, as have other ministry teams we've spoken to. Indeed as you say the denominational map is often different for missions in Europe compared to the congregations many of us have come from, and it's not unusual for missionaries themselves to explore this, particularly when they and their families have done a permanent move and re-location as is standard for the European missions. All of us are team with each other and help with church building and conversions across our denominations so we encourage these explorations.

The denominational picture in France, Austria, Netherlands, Germany and Belgium are especially fluid and evolving. and I find quite fascinating. These countries esp France, Austria and Germany have all been having a major Catholic revival recently (southern Germany is mostly Catholic) and some of our American missionaries who move to do European missions frequently are drawn in to help with this too, at the same time various of Protestant denominations are of course also growing, building their own churches or planting roots.